Lights Out
by Hamlette
Summary: Whitney tries to sleep. R&R.


TITLE: Lights Out  
AUTHOR: Hamlette  
FANDOM: Smallville  
PAIRING: None  
RATING: PG-13  
WARNING: Curse words and one vague sexual reference.  
SUMMARY: Whitney tries to sleep.  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own them, but Lex and I are working on a buyout.  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Marine speak: rack=cot, head=bathroom, K.P. is Kitchen Patrol – scrubbing pots/pans, etc.  
AUTHOR'S THANKS: To s.a. for a wonderful beta and kind words.  
FEEDBACK: comments/criticism appreciated and responded to.  
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: Merrilille@hotmail.com   


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"Lights out!"

Lights out and Whitney is praying that he'll get a little rest tonight. The five hours they're allowed wouldn't be enough if he fell asleep as he fell into his rack.

Whitney has never been this tired before, didn't know this level of exhaustion was possible. Stretching and bending for hours while stocking the store, sure. Running drills until he thought he'd puke – visions of a Shark's black and purple jersey in his head all the while. If anyone had asked him a month and a half ago, these are the memories he would have used to describe tired. But this tired; it's like a thief, stealing his coordination, his fine motor skills, his fucking ability to reason, to make decisions. Whitney is starting to believe his common sense left the building sometime after he dropped and did his seven thousandth push-up, because the time is at hand. Whitney knows that he's going to pound that skinny little bastard's hooked nose into something that looks like the mystery stew they ate for lunch today if he has to hear IT one more time.

That skinny little bastard is the guy in the rack next to him, Lester T. Wasznoski of Phoenix, Arizona – all five feet five inches and one hundred ten pounds of him. Lester T. Wasznoski with his bug eyes and his buck teeth and his beef jerky tan and that jagged, three inch long scar on the back of his bald head that Whitney has to stare at every morning in formation.

And IT is, "Ya know, Fordman, it's not the heat. It's the humidity."

Every night, every stinking night for the past six weeks, Lester T. Wasznoski has lain down, scratched himself, sighed and said that same phrase.

Ya know, Fordman, it's not the heat. It's the humidity.

Ya know, Fordman, it's not the heat. It's the humidity.

Ya know, Fordman, it's not the heat. It's the humidity.

Then again, maybe Whitney will pound the guy's entire face until it looks like the mystery stew they had for lunch yesterday. Or he could always go whole hog and rip the guy into tiny little pieces that would look like the mystery stew they had for supper last Wednesday. So many mystery choices, so few brain cells to help Whitney decide.

Whitney's taken to thinking of most everything that comes from the mess hall as fuel for the machine he's trying to make himself into. It's the only way he can keep most of what they call food down, ever since that day when he was hoping his squad would get a trip to the Post Exchange soon, because he was doing K.P. duty, down on his hands and knees, scrubbing the floor with his toothbrush – and who the fuck knew that wasn't just some stupid movie gag – listening to the cooks have a conversation about requisition orders and emus.

"Don't ask. Don't tell," doesn't just apply to the wet, sloppy sounds coming from the direction of the head. Stuff like that never happened at home, at least not where Whitney had to deal with it or even think about it. And now he's trying very hard to not hear it. Whitney's tired, he's hungry, he's missing home, and he's scared, so scared – scared of failing, scared of succeeding. Right now, he's not sure which fear is worse. And, God, Whitney had better think of something else soon, or he's going to be crying. Crying and beating the shit out of Lester T.

Whitney knows he can't let that happen. Because while crying or beating the shit out of Lester T. wouldn't earn him more than a trip to the supply closet with one of the Drills. for a little "advice and instruction" in the form of flying fists, Whitney is smart enough to understand that crying while beating the shit out of Lester T. would result in a visit to the C.O. and quick ticket home.

Home.

Home is Friday night lights and football, Mom and apple pie, Made in the USA pick-up trucks and racing Rusty Harner on that strip of dirt road behind the back forty of the Jackson's place.

Home is a letterman's jacket and a pretty girl to wrap it around on cold, clear nights when the hardest thing Whitney had to do was ignore the looks that Clark Kent was shooting that pretty girl. His pretty girl, damn it – no matter the way she was looking at Kent while half the town had turned out to bury Whitney's father.

Whitney's father.

Whitney's father is gone.

Well, technically, he hasn't gone anywhere. He's still there in Smallville, lying in the warm, fertile soil that's just going to waste, because nothing that's planted in that particular field will ever grow toward the open blue sky that Whitney misses the way Mister Wallace must still miss his arm that he lost in Viet Nam.

Whitney can't think about Viet Nam. He's willing to do anything to not think about Viet Nam right now, because, somehow, in his tired, twisted brain, Viet Nam always turns into Afghanistan.

"Hey, Lester T., I think this heat is gonna be the death of me." 


End file.
